“And Your Petitioners Shall Ever Pray”: Federal Legislative Petitions in Genealogical Research

United States House and Senate journals, and other legislative works contain a wealth of genealogical information, most of which came in the form of petitions. Petitions reveal a great deal about ancestors and what mattered to them. They also provide context on neighbors and neighborhoods. Some resulted directly in the passage of requested legislation or were referred to committee along with additional petitions related to a broad issue. All of them indicate a striking awareness of public debate and the political process, tell us a lot about what our ancestors considered to be important.

Value of Federal Legislative Petitions

Petitions could come from an individual, a group, or a business. They frequently contain supplementary support documents such as maps, wills, naturalizations, resolutions, deeds, affidavits, judgements, and other items. Petitions can contain one signature, a hundred, or even thousands. If an ancestor signed any kind of petition, you probably have his or her original signature, which is a gem unto itself. For example, after the 1910 census was taken, 2,735 Slovak citizens from Cleveland, OH signed a petition protesting their classification as Hungarians! If you find an ancestor in a legislative record, chances are that it was due to a petition.

History of Legislative Petitions

These petitions have a long history. The right of Americans to petition their government traces its roots in English Common Law to the Magna Carta of 1215, where it was recognized only indirectly. In Virginia, petitions appear as early as the first session of the General Assembly in 1619. Number five in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 stated That it is the right of subjects to petition the King and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal. The right to petition the government was defined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution, Article 1:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, of the right of the people peaceable to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Format and Subjects of Petitions

Petitions were drawn up in a specific format. The first section humbly beseeches the governing body and includes laudatory comments about the government. The second section generally spells out the law or action the citizen(s) want to change. The third section usually begins with the word “therefore” and presents the rationale for the change, often suggests changes, and includes signatures of the supporters. When petitioning the federal government, typically a public representative or prominent citizen would present their case in front of Congress. Originally petitions asked for favors or redressing wrongs, but they came to serve many other purposes. The limits of legislative petitions include: (1) not all petitions resulted in legislative acts since many such acts were passed without the submission of petitions, and (2) a petition could have been given back to the petitioner and not been available for research.

House and Senate Journals

House and Senate Journals are the only constitutionally mandated record of floor proceedings, including the introduction of bills and referral of petitions or bills to committees. Claims were brought before the House by petition or memorial from the claimant, or as a bill or resolution passed by the Senate, and appear in House and Senate journals. A petition is always referred to, but not reproduced, in the journals. To conduct a thorough search for records relating to claims, it’s often necessary to examine indexes and records of both houses of Congress.

These journals are available in PDF on Congress.gov on the Browse pages under Congressional Activity from the 1st through the 43rd Congresses.  A web archived version of the journals can be searched or browsed at American Memory: Lawmaking for a New Nation – U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates.

Committees of the House of Representatives

These committees dealt primarily with private legislation concerning claims and pensions. Claims were initiated by generating petitions or memorials. These claims contain information relating to private lives of individuals more than any other Congressional documents. Usually a public representative or prominent citizen presented a case in front of Congress on behalf of the petitioner(s), after which it would be referred to a committee. If the committee accepted the claim, it would present the bill and grant relief. It would become a private law, applicable to that specific individual or group. Private laws granted pensions, authorized payment of claims, or offered some other form of relief to a private individual or legal entity. During its first 150 years, the House created a number of standing committees to report on the merits of petitions claiming a right to relief from the federal government:

• Claims 1794-1946*
• Pension and Revolutionary War Claims 1813-1825*
• Revolutionary Pensions 1825*
• Military Pensions 1825-1831
• Invalid Pensions 1831-1946*
• Revolutionary Pensions 1831-1880*
• Pensions 1880-1946
• Revolutionary Claims 1825-1873*
• War Claims 1873-1946
• Private Land Claims 1813-1911*
• Judiciary 1813-1986

Committees marked with an asterisk (*) handled private claims. Each committee had petition and memorial files, and their papers may include original petitions or memorials. Both files should be checked. Be aware that some petitions and memorials and committee papers were not referred to a standing or select committee, but were attended to in the Committee of the Whole, i.e., the entire House.

In 1855 the Court of Claims was created to hear claims against the US. It relieved pressure on Congress by providing some claimants with an opportunity to bring certain types of claims against the government. Prior to this time, the only way to settle claims was to apply to the Treasury Department, and if the claim was rejected, to petition Congress for relief. Figures 1-4 below demonstrate the process the 37^th Congress followed regarding the 1863 petition of widow Margaret Lyman Stevens for compensation for her late husband’s federal service.

The Center for Legislative Archives (CLA) maintains a Research Room to provide on-site reference assistance to researchers, including genealogists searching for individual petitions and claims. Pertinent to this blog are its records of US House of Representatives committees and administrative offices; records of US Senate committees and administrative/support offices; and records of Joint Committees of the US Congress. The Center also has research guides for getting started and planning a research trip. Researchers need to know the name of the claimant and the Congress(es) in which the claim was submitted to the House in order for CLA archivists to locate the original records. Email the archivists at [email protected] for assistance.

Records of Legislative Proceedings, 1^st through 90^th Congresses, 1789-1968

The records of legislative proceedings consist in large part of documents that were introduced or generated on the floor of the House: minutes and journals, bills, committee reports, and documents introduced on the floor and ordered to be printed. They also include the Accompanying Papers series (see below). Most of these are the original documents that were ordered to be printed. Petitions and memorials and committee papers that were not referred to a standing or select committee, but were dispensed with in the Committee of the Whole are included in this category. Other petitions that were not referred to committees, but were ordered to be tabled are also described here.

The Accompanying Papers series is comprised of private claims submitted to the House between 1865 and 1903. They consist of papers relating to claims, pensions, and other forms of private relief, along with papers relating to certain public matters, that are arranged for each Congress alphabetically by person, state, territory, or subject. They are filed alphabetically by name of the individual or entity but are essentially files of papers relating to specific bills or resolutions known as bill files. This series is the primary location of records relating to private legislation between 1865 and 1903. Before 1865 the relevant records would be in committee papers of the appropriate committee and after 1903 are among the appropriate committee’s bill files. You can also watch a very informative National Archives video about this series. Also check out this fascinating article, “A Final Appeal to Capitol Hill”: The U.S. House’s Accompanying Papers File, 1865-1903.”

Individual files may contain either printed bills or reports, or unprinted records such as letters or petitions. Most files contain both. Tens of thousands of these files exist, but are usually small. From the 45^th (1877) to the 51^st Congress (1891), printed copies of private bills are filed at the end of the accompanying papers. The vast majority of these papers concern common citizens seeking pensions or payment of claims against the government.

The right to petition the federal government for redress of grievances by ordinary citizens generated valuable primary-source information you may not find elsewhere. Be sure to use it to your genealogical advantage.